Two Words
by liye
Summary: Angelique and Barnabas share a moment. Dialogue. Story.
1. Chapter 1

Angelique woke up and looked around her at the strange white walls with the shadowy shapes greying into an evening quiet. Gradually, she focused her eyes. "I am here," she thought. "I'll have to go next door and..." She narrowed her unfocused view of the tiny room. "I remember bringing all my bags up the stairs yesterday. It was a long walk from the carriage house. I couldn't believe that a warmly-cloaked man welcomed me and called me by my name and picked up my bags to help me along the walk to the house. He was so friendly and familiar and helpful. My arms were getting so heavy and sore."

"Angelique." She heard the soft voice again. "Do you remember what you were doing?"

"How am I here?" She asked.

"Do you remember?" The man's voice was so calming. "Think. Think back. Look back and remember."

"Barnabas? Barnabas? What happened? How did I get here?" Angelique tossed her words toward the voice.

A soft-spoken brown-haired man in somber dress quietly looked at her once again. "Do you remember? You were fighting for your life. You were fighting, and you were attacked. A man raised a stake-and you drew a knife. Angelique. Don't you remember? I carried you away from the ghastly horror of a raised stake and a certain kind of extinction...ah...extinguishment."

"You carried me away. I thought you were gone. Gone away forever." Angelique's eyes were plaintive.

Barnabas looked bemused: a little perplexed. "Forever? That's a word." He turned ironically and studied the shadows moving and whispering along the white walls of the cubicle. "I brought you here. You are safe. You have awakened at last. You were asleep for such a long time. It seemed you could almost hear; and then you could even breathe a little; but you wouldn't open your eyes."

"Barnabas?" Angelique answered. "Could you please listen to me for one minute of time? You asked me, do I remember. I want to ask you, too: do you remember, Barnabas; do you remember standing on the rocks one night long ago and watching a little bat in the dark mist? Then, do you remember slipping a little bit? Barnabas...I caught you that evening...I was the little brown bat. Can you ever forgive me?"

Angelique continued, "Barnabas, I couldn't let you go. I was so afraid. I was so afraid it was all over. Thank you for hearing me. I listened to you for such a long time, but you wouldn't stop to hear me. Barnabas, when we met, long ago and far away, I was standing in your shoes at every dance...daytime...nighttime... It was an endless whirl and an endless delight. Every day was a new evening...But, Barnabas, you loved me then. You simply don't recognize me. You don't know who I really am. You don't know what I am."

"Angelique. Stop. Stay with me for a second. I know who you are. I know I made you suffer for what you can never be. I know what you are. I remember the dark mist. I saw the brown bat fly. I thought you were gone. Gone. My head was spinning: my psyche broken. Now I know you brought me with you that night. And, Angelique, I am who brought you here."


	2. Chapter 2

Angelique watched the flickering shapes as the evening grew darker. She thought she heard a rustle, and then a slight cough. She listened to the hum of the world at dusk. She reclined, thinking that she would rest from her long travels. She frowned. What had brought her to this place up a long stairway? Her bags were in the foyer. She listened once again. "Barnabas brought me here," she thought. "I can almost remember, now. I was telling him that he was wrong; that he did not know the truth about our past. He refused to believe me. Then, for a moment I was standing; then I was almost fading away from consciousness. I heard a bat. I heard the flutter of wings. It seemed like a long time before anyone talked to me, and then, Barnabas began to call me. He called my name. He was looking for me. I knew he was near."

"I knew he was lonely. I used to think he never felt loneliness. Most of his feelings were more often a kind of a melancholy than a loneliness. Barnabas was alone."

"When Barnabas was alone, he changed. He did not want to know what it is to be lonely. It was a quiet certitude that brought him to me."

"I felt comforted when he was near."

Angelique sat in a chair by a bookcase and looked around. She felt Barnabas standing by a door looking out as the night began to collect itself. She glanced at Barnabas, and quickly said, "I'll recover myself in..." She tilted her head and her eyes glinted. "Barnabas," she asked, "when you brought me here, you said that you carried me?"

"Yes," Barnabas replied. "I picked you up and carried you. You had awakened and recovered your senses. I could have left; I could have left you. I almost walked away, once I knew you'd be well again."

Angelique shook her head, "I was all alone."

"You were not alone," Barnabas stepped back from the doorway, "I was watching you."

Angelique looked blank, "You were there?"

"Yes," said Barnabas, "I saw everything from a dark corner. You simply did not notice me."

"Barnabas, I felt your arms around me." Angelique stood from her chair, piqued.

Barnabas looked at Angelique for a long time. "Angelique, you seemed both lonely and unloved."

Angelique tossed a hand towards the doorway, "Barnabas, what a thing to say to me now."

Angelique glanced away. "One more thing...was it me, or was it you..?"

"In the beginning," Barnabas laughed slightly, "That is for you alone, my dear; whether it is first me...or, only you..."

Angelique drew her shoulders back, "I am no mystery; I am only puzzled."

Barnabas faintly smiled, "It is a puzzle, certainly."

Angelique shook her head, "No matter. I guess I was silly to believe in you."

Barnabas protested, "Nonsense. Nonsense. You had no time to believe or disbelieve in me. You were always very busy. I could not traipse after your clutter."

Angelique looked down, "I suppose I should have suspected you, but you have always seemed to be a world apart."

"I am not a world apart from you, Angelique." Barnabas looked out the door and at the night once again.


	3. Chapter 3

Angelique looked at Barnabas. "Is this the old house?" She asked. "When did you know?"

Barnabas turned and answered, "When did I know you were Josette? I knew."

Angelique seemed nonplussed. She said, "You visited me so often. I was in my daytime box-ahem-and I'd wait for you and then I'd change and...there you were."

Barnabas stood impassive. "You were always so happy to see me. I knew. You and Josette looked so much alike-Josette with the brown hair and you with the white-well, blonde-hair-...Angelique, you would not go out without your sun-parasol, surely-?"

"My sun-parasol...how did you guess...," Angelique hesitated as she tried to remember her sun-parasol.

"I didn't guess." Barnabas continued, "You wouldn't marry me. I was so hurt."

"Barnabas, my heart hurts to hear you say that. I couldn't marry you. How could I appear at my wedding, Barnabas…you made my daytime dilemmas so difficult...that I had to create a ruse to explain my hesitance and my absences. And then your determination to decide that I was not one and the same person as Josette defined you; and it defined the two of us. I was cast down in your affections. I could not ever recover myself."

Barnabas smiled. "Here's your mirror, dear-The mirror has your face and hair painted on the back. You don't ever have to appear in your own mirror…you don't even have to turn it towards its reflective surface. - Did you think that I'd have given away your mirror? I have it in my hands. When I hold the mirror handle, I can see the back of the mirror with its painted smiling face and painted closed eyes. It has yellow yarn hair, spun as golden as the sun…that is, as the sun when it is out during the daytime. And your sun-parasol, with this mirror—allows you to appear when the sun is out—am I correct, Angelique? Is it that I cannot see your blonde hair for the sun? Is it that it has gone white with age? Is it as brown as a bat? I am curious, Angelique. I never knew how you could appear during the day, and then I found your mirror and I saw your sun-parasol. The sun-parasol dances above you to protect you in a crescent, in a bouquet of color, once you have gone out in your finest outfits. After all—you are only, after all, going out at night. What a clever little trick, to trick the sun out of your appearance and to allow yourself to appear during the daytime, too."

Angelique looked at the painted likeness on the back of the mirror. She hurried to explain, "I was in my box, shall we say, during the days; and then you'd visit and court me thinking I was Josette. When you believed that Josette ran away with your uncle, it was my ruse; because I couldn't appear at our wedding-and then as a result of the ruse, we were married, but, you came to think that Josette was dead-that she had fallen from Widow's Hill...well, Barnabas, here I must ask you-how is it that you could become a bat without going to Widow's Hill-where you can stand and say only a word to become a bat and fly..?"

"Angelique, I couldn't see the cliff at Widow's Hill that night. All I heard was an "EEEK" and then I saw a brown bat flying by me."

"Well," Angelique composed herself, "A flying bat is not a flying angel, surely. But a bat flies. A bat's call is an 'eek.'"

"Angelique, you are saying to me that...to fly as a bat-you must say your name from the side of Widow's Hill, and then you become a bat and fly away? Your name is thus: "Angel-Eeek?"

"I am a brown mouse thereby, I assure you."

"Angelique," Barnabas asked softly, "when I almost slipped at Widow's Hill, when you were flying as a bat, how did you catch me?"

"I will tell you in two words, Barnabas. I said, "Barn-a-bus-s, Live!" Then you turned into a bat: Barn-a-bus-s is the same as your name, Barnabas; and then you flew from the hill-that is-you caught your footing and left."

"You are powerful, Angelique. I was also a bat, before I met you. In answer to your earlier question, that is how I knew that you were one, too. I had little doubt."

"Barnabas, you courted the world rather than see me." Angelique seemed tired.

"Angelique, your spell precedes you." Barnabas frowned as he said, "Since we met, you have almost died three times, each of them for being. Once you were shot."

"Not a silver bullet," Angelique parried.

"Once you were threatened with the stake," Barnabas went on.

"You saved me, Barnabas it is your power that saved me from the stake," Angelique quickly interpreted her changed circumstance.

"And you took the blame for that event, as I recall. And next you had hell to pay for my surge of strength that night-you were to be hanged for it..." Barnabas frowned.

"Well, what happened then, Barnabas? We were separated after you saved me from the bullet and from the stake. Then, I took the blame and we were again seemingly estranged?" Angelique tried to equate the events.

Barnabas noted, "Somehow, those people believed that you had such great power, that they forgot about me."

"Power? Because I could turn you into a bat by saying your name and adding, 'Live.'" Angelique was astonished.

"Exactly. After all, I was also a bat. A walk to Widow's Hill and a word, and there is a bat flying into the night."

"Barnabas, you courted the rest of the world and ignored me," Angelique protested quietly.

"I was callous. I watched you. I knew you." Barnabas looked amused.

"Then, Barnabas, if you carried me away with you, the hanging was only...an illusion?"

"Angelique, if your appearance as Josette was your illusion; after all, what if you were found in a box during the daylight hours...and then you decisively gave an illusion of running away with an old man to avoid a daytime wedding...Then, likewise, the hanging figure in the trees was also an illusion. My illusion. That is, your illusion is of becoming the refined and perfect Josette; my illusion is of a vison of first seeing a figure in the trees, and then of course, a ghost walking..."

"Where?" Angelique asked, "In the 'enchanted' forest? On the grounds? In the house?"

"Well. In the trees, on the grounds, in the house. Of course, you are here with me. We are in the old house. You are not my illusion after I carried you away, but you are an illusion when you are misled by two suitors and then become a vision in the trees."

"All of the walking; as an illusion-how does this happen?" Angelique tries to remember.

"...It is that third stroke of fate...three attempts.., that is more than enough for one person, as is. Angelique, those people tried to kill you three times to have their illusion of a vision and a ghost..."

"In the 'enchanted' forest. We are in the old house now."

"Angelique, of course we are now. I have just one more thing to tell you. I have a surprise for you. Did you know that...we are toys?"

"Toys, Barnabas? Whose toys?"

"Did you see the portraits of our ancestors hanging on the walls?"

"Yes."

"Did you see the shadowy ghosts in the old house?"

"Yes."

"Our ancestors are the ghosts in the old house. What you think is a ghost is one of the people in the portraits. Our ancestors are real children, Angelique-we are their toys. We are their dolls...we are their toys."

"How can our ancestors be real children, Barnabas-they are older than us."

"Angelique, real children throw away their toys when they become older-or a child's parents will one day throw away a child's toys-that is how the children, our ancestors in the portraits, become older than us. Time makes them older than us. We are long discarded doll-toys by the time they are grown. That is why they are children and why they are also older than us. Time passing makes them our ancestors in the portraits."

Barnabas pauses, "Angelique, during the day, we are dolls in a toy box-dolls that live in a doll's house and at night, and in the enchanted forest, and in the hands of our portrait ancestors who are real children: we come to life."

"I am my ancestor's toy doll, and you are likewise your ancestor's toy doll?"

"Likewise. We come to life to play out the dramas of those shadowy figures we think of as ghosts-we are only toys." Barnabas looks at Angelique, and continues, "Those flickering shapes are little people playing with dolls. These small people live in the old house. That is where we are now. The new house is their doll's house, and it is a place where stories are often told. That is the illusion. The creators of this illusion are playing with dolls in their doll's house-that is the story told. Our own story is so fragmented, and it is yet, much simpler."

Barnabas looked away, and then he walked to Angelique and showed her a gift he had brought for her. The gift included a ceramic vase, a dandelion-painted ceramic face-powder box and a little round ceramic box. He showed her the hand mirror with the painted face on the back and a comb and brush that went with the mirror. He held Angelique's sun-parasol, and said, "When you look at your sun-parasol, now closed, you will se a bouquet of flowers. There are violets, yellow buttercups, and red roses. The bouquet is for you. In your mirror, you will see a ring. I am giving our ring back to you. It can be kept in the little ceramic box. I am happy that we are to wear our rings again. Angelique, I knew that when I saved you three times by collecting your breath on the mirror, that I would also thereby save myself. Thank you for telling me the words you called to me on that night long ago. Words have brought us together again. Those words are kept in the breath that you left on the mirror, when you breathe out to say the words that have kept us together."

Barnabas has stopped talking. He resumes, "Angelique, I have returned your first favor three times already. Let me explain. I have saved you from the bullet with your mirror, where I captured your breath in the reflective side, and this gave you back your life. I have saved you from the stake by raising your mirror at the raised stake to give myself the power of your captured breath of life to counter the attack. I have saved you from hanging by showing the ghostly mist of your breath on the reflective side of your mirror shining in the sun to create the illusion of the figure hanging in the trees and also to create the illusion of the ghostly apparition that seemed to walk the grounds and seemed to walk the house. Here is your present returned to you from me. When I stood at Widow's Hill and slipped, you said to me: 'Barnabas, Live.' And I have repeated to you three times these same words: 'Angelique, Live.' Angelique, remember me now as I was then. Here is your parasol for the sun, and here is your mirror. I have saved them for you. I will return them now."


End file.
